We probably won't hit the record November 22 temperature (21°C, set in 1913), but we'll get awfully close. It's already 15°C at O'Hare, with a forecast of 18°C—followed by a cold front and 0°C by morning.

Well, that was fun. I've just spent the last three days organizing, upgrading, and repackaging 9,400 lines of code in umpteen objects into two separate assemblies. Plus I upgraded the assemblies to all the latest cool stuff, like Azure Storage Client 2.0 and...well, stuff.

Hostess said a strike by members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union that began last week had crippled its ability to produce and deliver products at several facilities, and it had no choice but to give up its effort to emerge intact from bankruptcy court.

The Irving, Texas-based company said the liquidation would mean that most of its 18,500 employees would lose their jobs.

In the Chicago area, Hostess employs about 300 workers making CupCakes, HoHos and Honey Buns in Schiller Park. Hostess also has a bakery in Hodgkins, where 325 workers make Beefsteak, Butternut, Home Pride, Nature’s Pride and Wonder breads.

Union President Frank Hurt said the company's failure was not the fault of the union but the "result of nearly a decade of financial and operational mismanagement" and that management was trying to make union workers the scapegoats for a plan by Wall Street investors to sell Hostess.

Starting before 8am with an international conference call usually means I'll have a full day. Fortunately there's Instapaper, which lets me shove all the interesting things I find during the day onto my Android pad for tomorrow's bus ride to work.

The Chicago Board of Elections apparently exposed my personal information along with that of the other 1.7 million voters in the city. (Since voter registration information is public in Illinois, this is actually not a real story. But oooooh! Information breach! Scary hackers!)

Chicago restaurant L20, which shares an alley with my apartment building, got its second Michelin star back. I ate there once, last May, and was very impressed. Not as impressed as the check would have suggested, but impressed nonetheless.

Ms. Kelley, a volunteer with wounded veterans and military families, brought her complaint to a rank-and-file agent she knew from a previous encounter with the F.B.I. office, the official also said. That agent, who had previously pursued a friendship with Ms. Kelley and had earlier sent her shirtless photographs of himself, was “just a conduit” for the complaint, he said. He had no training in cybercrime, was not part of the cyber squad handling the case and was never assigned to the investigation.

But the agent, who was not identified, continued to “nose around” about the case...

Later, the agent became convinced — incorrectly, the official said — that the case had stalled. Because of his “worldview,” as the official put it, he suspected a politically motivated cover-up to protect President Obama. The agent alerted Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, who called the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, on Oct. 31 to tell him of the agent’s concerns.

Says Josh Marshall:

So basically this entire scandal both at the outset and in the denouement was driven by Freakshow FBI Agent X who both wanted to bed the victim of the alleged harassment and also decided that the FBI was covering up it’s investigation of the Tampa socialite to protect President Obama. And this because of his “worldview”. Please let us meet this awesome example of American law enforcement.

Now, I understand why David Patraeus lost his security clearance and, thus, his job, because of this affair. I also agree with commentators (including one of my co-workers) who said, "he resigned because of an affair? Really?" I don't think there's anything simple about the DCI conducting an affair using a pseudo-anonymous account on GMail that someone could discover without resorting to Bond-esque espionage.

But I think our nation's top law-enforcement agency, the FBI, deserve props for deciding that an investigation of a top political official that turned up nothing criminal should be announced only after one of the most divisive elections of the last 50 years. Law enforcement should not ever be political. We're a nation of laws, not men, as many have observed. Patraeus acted stupidly, but not criminally, and he's given up his career for it. Let him go quietly into the night.

As for the petty, partisan little man that broke the law to use Patraeus's resignation for political gain, he deserves the undying scrutiny of the U.S. Attorney for whatever district he lives in.

And full disclosure: I believe strongly that the DCI needs to give up certain things upon taking office, including GMail, Facebook, and bits on the side. I have no problem with human failings; but I object in the strongest terms to people in certain offices—Director of Central Intelligence and President of the United States included—engaging in any kind of personal deceit. Professional deceit? No problem with DCI or POTUS; that's part of the job. But Bill Clinton disappointed me deeply, and now, so did David Patraeus. And that's even before we talk about illegal drone strikes.

Talking Points Memo has some smart readers. One of them crystallized the debate about whether the Romney campaign's shock after losing was genuine, or a ploy to inoculate themselves against the wrath of their donors:

There’s an old rule of political research: never ascribe to conspiracy what can be more easily explained by stupidity. Was the Romney campaign brilliant masterminds of a coordinated PR strategy to make themselves look stupid? Or we’re they just stupid?

Occam’s razor says the latter.

For background, read Josh Marshall's angst about how the Romney campaign could have missed the facts so completely, even though the campaign ran on a platform of denying evidence that disagreed with them.

Two Chicago businesses find themselves on the ropes this afternoon, according to the Tribune. The first company, Groupon, has problems many people predicted long before their IPO:

Groupon and its compatriots in the much-hyped daily deals business were supposed to change the very nature of small-business advertising. Instead, it is the daily deal vendors that are racing to change as evidence mounts that their business model is fundamentally flawed.

Critics say the torrid growth that enabled Groupon to go public at $20 a share just a year ago was fueled by merchants buying into a new type of marketing that they didn't fully understand. The discounts offered through the Groupon coupons have turned out to be costly, and the repeat business they generate uncertain.

A Raymond James survey of roughly 115 merchants that used daily deals services during the fall found that 39 percent of merchants said they were not likely to run another Groupon promotion over the next couple of years. The top reasons cited were high commission rate and low rate of repeat customers gained through offering a promotion.

Yeah, no kidding. These flaws have been obvious from Groupon's beginning. I have one outstanding Groupon and one outstanding Living Social deal, and I'm not sure when I'll get to use either. After that, meh.

The other company, Hostess, has hit an unexpected and possibly fatal labor dispute that may force it into out of reorganization and into liquidation:

On Friday, Hostess-employed members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union began to strike nationwide, blaming a “horrendous contract” that they claimed could cut wages and benefits up to 32%.

Workers picketed or honored the strike in Sacramento, Los Angeles, Oakland and Seattle and in states such as Ohio, Tennessee, Illinois and Montana. Hostess said in a statement that the walk-offs could lead to layoffs for most of its 18,300-member workforce and a sale of its assets “to the highest bidders.”

“A widespread strike will cause Hostess Brands to liquidate if we are unable to produce or deliver products,” according to the statement. The Irving, Tex.-based company, which was founded in 1930, acknowledged that “the concessions are tough.”

So if you like Twinkies and Ho-Hos, you'd better stock up. (Don't worry; they keep.)

In the past 24 hours, the temperature here dropped from 21°C at 2pm yesterday to -2°C at 8am today. The cold front responsible drove the temperature down 6°C in three hours at one point, making for uncomfortable walks home from dinner.

We had two delightful September days, but now it's November again. The Climate Prediction Center expects normal temperatures in Chicago through the end of January. Winter is coming...